Transit strike post-mortem

Long-time readers of Left Behinds know we strongly supported the transit workers' union against the MTA, the Daily News, middle-class white resentment, etc. Now, four months later, it's time to acknowledge the truth: Roger Toussaint fucked up. Fucked up huge, in fact.

Here's what happened: Toussaint accepted a deal. The membership rejected it narrowly. The MTA and the state went into full punishment mode, and have now succeeded in crippling the union, as expected.

Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union was fined $2.5 million yesterday for the 60-hour strike that hobbled the city in December and ordered to suspend its automatic payroll deductions of union dues for at least 90 days — a move that could cripple, at least temporarily, the union's ability to collect from its members.

I'm betting that the local ends up bankrupt and taken over by the national organization, which, if I'm not mistaken, is run by the former head of Local 100, the man Toussaint beat because members hated the last contract he negotiated with the MTA. Still, I have to believe Toussaint knew this was coming even as he planned the strike. It's not like the MTA made a secret of the fact that they were going to do everything they could to crush the union. As I argued in the immediate aftermath of the strike:

In the long term, the MTA still wants the TWU gone. And all of us should be rooting for the TWU, since as transit riders and residents of New York City the TWU is the closest thing we currently have to independent oversight of the MTA and its crooked books and sweetheart land deals.

Where Toussaint fucked up was not in calling the strike, necessarily. It was in failing to communicate with his membership. He got them what seemed to me like a pretty decent deal. Who knows why his members rejected it? Maybe they were just so furious with the MTA by then that even the modest compromises Toussaint made seemed like betrayals. The deal went down by seven votes out of something like 30,000. Now, with cooler heads, the membership has reconsidered.

The city's main transit union announced yesterday that its members had overwhelmingly approved the same contract proposal that they narrowly rejected in January, and its leadership demanded that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority now approve the deal.

Too late, says the MTA.

The authority brushed aside the union's demand yesterday, insisting that it had taken the contract terms off the table after the workers stunned the city by voting them down in January. Tom Kelly, a spokesman for the authority, dismissed the union revote as "an empty gesture."

Again, no surprise. When the bargain was first announced Pataki was huffing and puffing about how horrible it was and how he'd never allow it. Which SG pointed out at the time was patently ridiculous: "Kalikow is Pataki's bitch who doesn't sneeze without Pataki's OK, so whatever Pataki is spouting about not knowing about a side deal is completely for the sake of the national party."

Sadly, there's now no earthly way members get a deal half as good as the one they rejected in January, and their union is crushed, so they can't do shit about it. It's a complete fiasco for them, and for the rest of us who needed the TWU to help fight against the Ratners of the world.

Tags: MTA, subway strike, news and politics, New York,transit strike, TWU, transit union, George Pataki